On the List
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
Colossians 1:19-22
It's hard for me to view myself as having ever been "alienated [from] and hostile in mind" toward God (22). I think that where I live (Texas) God is often just accepted and most of us were raised to behave and act right. So, for quite a few people - myself included, along with most of the people I know - there was really no behavioral difference between the day before we became Christians and the day after. That is to say, not much really changed on the outside. Couple this with our teaching kids that God wants to be your friend and this alienation and hostility becomes even more difficult to comprehend.
There is a gap between the psychological and the spiritual. Our behavior and teaching have led us to believe that we are mostly good. We know that we have to have Jesus to get into heaven, so (as my friend Clay so brilliantly said it) we rely on our best effort and then "sprinkle a little Jesus on top." This should be enough to get us into heaven and so Jesus basically serves as our backstage pass. [I'm reminded of a scene in the movie Down to Earth where people are lined up waiting to get into heaven - which is a night club - and this girl tells them her name and says "Mike said he'd put me on the list" and they find her name and let her in.]
The spiritual reality, however, is that no matter how good we act, we are still alienated and hostile toward God. This rips right through any entitlement mentality that we may develop due to our own good deeds. This goes directly back to the question of motivation, only, I think that to truly grasp the grace and redemption that should be our motivation, we must first grasp the depth of the depravity from which we've been saved.
If I don't really know that I'm sinful, then I don't really know and am not truly encouraged by the fact that I've been saved. Because, saved from what?!? If I'm not really sinful then what's the big deal? What's the Good News? It's just news... Charles Spurgeon once said 'if your sin is small, your savior will be small also; but if your sin is great, then your Savior must be great.'
A Band-Aid or a Whip
I was listening to Tim Keller contrasting Relativism and Moralism and he had a great analogy. He said, "One makes Christ a Band-Aid, the other makes him a whip."
For example: The moralist says, "Behave this way because this is what Jesus wants you to do." The relativist says, "Oh, you messed up, that's ok, Jesus forgives you."
In contrast to both, the Gospel says, "You could never behave the way you hope to, only Jesus can. What you need is not to try harder or be less hard on yourself. What you need is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
What we need is a remedy.
Disclaimer: I'm not quite behind the last line, "make us the remedy."
What’s My Motivation?
The average Christian functionally bases his justification on his sanctification rather than the other way around.
Richard Lovelace, quoted by Tim Keller
Religion is "outside in": if I work hard according to Biblical principles, God will come in an bless me. The Gospel is "inside out": because God has accepted and blessed me, I work hard to live according to Biblical principles.
Keller
This goes beyond the behavior mentioned previously and begins speaking to motivation. Do I truly believe that I have been made right with God? Or do I continue striving to make myself righteous and maintain that righteousness? The latter is like running on a treadmill - you'll wear yourself out and end up in the exact same place that you started no matter how long you run.
The more I learn and listen, the more I realize that there is no practical outworking for change in this area. That is, beyond simply dwelling on the truth of the Gospel. As Paul says, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ." (Rom 10:17 ESV)
So, this should be our practice and it flies in the face of all that is practical: "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly" and share it with one another in multiple ways. (Col 3:16 ESV)
What Do You Value?
If we only trust Christ to give us gifts and not himself as the all-satisfying gift, then we do not trust him in a way that honors him as our treasure. We simply honor the gifts. They are what we really want, not him. So biblical faith in Jesus must mean that we trust him to give us what we need most - namely, himself. That means that faith itself must include at its essence a treasuring of Christ above all things.
John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life, 70
McManus would put it another way, "Have the benefits of our faith become more precious than the benefactor of our faith?" (TBW)
It's easy to rail against this from the moral high ground, it's much harder to teach practically. How do you help people learn to treasure Christ above all things? Self-sanctification is so much easier for the teacher to teach and the learner to grasp.
If we truly believe, however, that true faith is more about what we treasure than how we behave then we must find ways to communicate this clearly and consistently in a way that leads to life change.
There are probably people who would say that you can behave your way into a heart change, but I really don't believe it to be so. Behavior change by act of will only holds up as long as that person can muster the strength to maintain it. Should the person lose the ability to uphold the behavior they may easily become dejected or disinterested (at best) or allow mastery of behavior to become paramount (at worst). On the flip-side, should the individual be able to maintain the behavior by sheer force of will, there are at least two possible outcomes: 1) self-satisfaction and pride of personal accomplishment, 2) resentment toward God for not rewarding the behavior.
However, if our focus is on Christ alone and treasuring Him first and foremost, then - I believe - our behavior will change through His changing of our hearts. Dr. Tim Keller reminds us that not only is our justification by faith, so is our sanctification. That is, it is not by our works that our outward lives are changed, but by faith in Christ.
This willing ourselves to be better has gone on too long and has largely divorced us from the work of Christ, the "author and perfecter of our faith." We must begin preaching the Gospel to one another in a way that would move our eyes away from the inward and toward Jesus. Only then will He become our treasure.
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